Are you new to Firefox? Well you’ve come to the right place. This article covers all the basics and will get you up and running in just a few minutes. It also has tons of links to other great articles that you might want to explore later on for future reference.

One-click bookmarking

Finding everything with the Awesome Bar

We like to call Firefox’s Location bar the "Awesome Bar" because when you start to type the name or address of a website you’ve been to before, it finds it for you in an instant. So the more you use it, the better it gets. To learn more Awesome Bar tricks, including searching through your open tabs and searching the web, see Awesome Bar - Search your Firefox bookmarks, history and tabs from the address bar.

Searching the web

Search the web with your favorite search site in Firefox’s built-in Search bar. Just click the icon on the left to switch search engines. Learn more search tricks with the Use the Search bar in Firefox article.

Tabs tabs tabs!

Tabs let you have multiple websites open inside a single window, keeping your screen clutter-free and making it easy to switch between sites.
To open a new tab, click the new tab button (+) on the right side of the last tab.
To learn more about working with tabs, see Use tabs to organize lots of websites in a single window.

App Tabs

App Tabs let you keep your favorite web apps like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter open and from a quick click away. To create an App Tab, right-clickcontrol-click on the tab and select Pin as App Tab from the menu. To learn more about how App Tabs work, see Pinned Tabs - keep favorite websites open and just a click away.

Tab Groups

Tabs are great and Tab Groups (also known as Panorama) are a great way to keep them organized. With Tab Groups you can visually group related tabs, switch between groups and quickly search through all of your tabs.

Staying safe

Instant website ID check

Firefox has a color-coded system that makes it easy to check on suspicious sites and avoid Web forgeries. Just click the button to the left of a site’s address. A green site identity button indicates that your connection is secure and that the owners of the website are who you would expect them to be. Your bank, for example, should have a green button. See How do I tell if my connection to a website is secure? to learn more.

Tell websites to stop tracking you

Many major websites track their visitors' behavior and then sell or provide that information to other companies such as advertisers. Firefox has a Do-Not-Track feature that lets you tell websites you don't want your browsing behavior tracked. For more information about tracking and how to turn this feature on, see How do I turn on the Do Not Track feature?.

Private Browsing

Firefox’s Private Browsing feature allows you to browse the Internet without saving any information to your computer about which sites and pages you’ve visited.

Customizing Firefox with Add-ons

Add-ons are like apps that you install to add bells & whistles to Firefox. You can get add-ons that compare prices, check the weather, change the look of Firefox, listen to music, or even update your Facebook profile. To learn more about Add-ons and how to install them, see Find and install add-ons to add features to Firefox.

Personas

Personas let you easily personalize Firefox's appearance. Try some on at getpersonas.com.

Staying up to date

Keeping everything up-to-date is an important part of keeping Firefox and your computer running in top shape. And while Firefox is configured to automatically check for updates, you can check to see whether you have the latest version by going to the top of the Firefox windowthe menu bar, click on the Firefox menuHelp menuFirefox button, go over to the Help menu and select About Firefox, and select About Firefox. For Windows XP: At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Help menu and select About Firefox. For more info, see Update Firefox to the latest version.

Check those plugins

Don’t forget to check to see if your plugins need to be updated. Out-of-date plugins can cause all sorts of problems. Go to Mozilla’s Plugin check now.